| | 1 | Author: | Hall
Baynard Rush
1798-1863 | Add | | | Title: | Frank Freeman's barber shop  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Our southern coast, as the reader doubtless knows,
is fringed with a net-work of islands, many of which
have not yet a growth sufficient for introduction to
a school atlas. Some of these miniature lands are
not inhabited and rarely visited; while others are,
at certain seasons, resorts for “marooning”—a picnic
sort of life passed for weeks in extemporaneous
sheds of boards and canvas. A few of the islets
are large enough for one or more plantations; and,
hence, are like immense gardens in which are embowered
lordly mansions with spacious lawns in
front and comfortable “quarters” at convenient
distances—a negro village of neat cabins, usually
white-washed, and always each surrounded with its
own domain of truck-patch, and boasting of its henhouse,
pig-pen, and other offices. “Nephew, I send $2,000—I know your scruples.
But I will positively take no denial. See here—
don't refuse the additional—I'll pitch it in the fire, if
you send any back. You'll have it hard enough
with the remaining $2,000. “Edward, my dearest:—May the Lord sustain
you!—and He will. But we have both been long
prepared for this:—Dr. Jordan thinks there is no
hope of my life beyond next summer! Edward!
can we not meet once—the last? And your dear
wife—my much beloved—my only daughter, since
Sophia preceded me home!—will she not come
again? Ah! Edward! if I might go to my rest—
in your arms and hers! “Edward! oh, Edward!—I would—but, no! no!
you never can believe me now! I call God to witness—I
never, no never, loved any but you—I love
none other now! By the unutterable agony of my
frenzied soul, do not for God's sake, oh! do not
curse me!.... Good God! can it be possible!
I did not mean it! I know not why I did
it! I have not—I have not! I will not! Oh! say,
Edward! is it not a dream?—wake me from it!
Forgive, forgive, forgive me! Bid me come and
lie down at your feet and die! Call me only once
by the dear name—and then kill me! Oh! why,
why did you not command me to stay ever near
you! You were to blame—no! no! how dare I reproach?
One trial, Edward—but one! I would
give the universe—I would give my life—God knows
I would—to stand where I did for a moment....
Vain! I cannot—cannot!—I am going mad!....
But I am not—I am not so fallen! I will not so
fall! I will leap into the sea first!..... Stay!
don't curse me! Pray for me! Yes, yes, I that
laughed at prayer, now with deep groanings of my
soul, and with my face in the dust call on you, Edward!
my wronged husband, and as a minister of
Christ, to pray for me. I am penitent—I have not
sinned—I will die rather! I will plunge into the
ocean. Oh! dear Edward!—husband, dear husband!
and for the last, I write those sacred words—
farewell, farewell!” “Rev. and very dear Brother:—I remain, this
year, at Point Lookout, where we shall establish our
new paper. It is to be called “The Scarifier and
Renovator.” I expect to edit awhile, myself. We'll
make an impression on the soul-killers. Besides, I
can do a vast amount of good here, in other ways.
I have been instrumental, by the blessing of God, in
freeing more than twenty-five, since my last, in
March! Most of them, with a little help from my
secret assistants in the lower countries, succeeded
(you will be rejoiced to learn) in bringing off property
enough to pay expenses, and afford a handsome
remuneration. I forwarded the poor fugitives to the
old fellow—you know where. “Master!—a dear name yet—though I appear as
a traitor!—a name I shall ever love, even if my new
friends(?) constrain me to use their cold language.
Yes, dear master! you knew me better than I know
myself: you would never let me vow! Oh! I remember
that one sermon—`Is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this thing?' They look on me as
noble and free!—alas!—I feel myself a slave now,
and worse than before; I have become in my own
eyes `a dog!'—I have done it. “Rev. and dear Sharpinton:—My soul is fairly
on fire—it fairly cries out, `Away with the accursed
slavers from the earth!' Oh, heavens! doctor,
they've killed our Somerville; and in defence of his
press! Freedom!—where's our right to publish the
truth—the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Don't tell me of freedom! Union or no union!
down with the gag-loving, press-muzzling, slavery-aiding,
colonization-scheming, God-defying, double-dyed,
negro-lashing, humanity-crushing, base, grovelling,
truckling villains, that, in face of the sun, will
assault and pull down a printing-office, and pitch the
types into the street, and shoot down, spite of law,
justice, and rights of man, the noble Somerville, and
standing to defend his rights! It hadn't ought to be
the 19th century! no, it hadn't ought to!— I
know it cannot be done; but, still, follow me, ye
friends of the poor, down-trodden, brute-degraded,
blood-squeezed, and sweat-defrauded sons of Africa!
oh! ye men of tried souls, ye true Americans, and
we will drive the accursed South into the earth-girdling
ocean! I did you a great, a very great wrong—and I am
very sorry for it. And yet I always more than half
believed you must be true. God be thanked—that
dear Edward redeemed you—how would I now feel,
if that infernal dealer had got you!—poor Edward,
how he looked when he got my note and bid up the
$4,000! “* * I told uncle I would write about Sarah
—your dear mother. She died many months ago,
and very suddenly, and full six weeks before we left
the north or arrived at Evergreen. And while you
now mourn that you can never see her again—yet
15
you will rejoice your oversight had nothing to do
with her death. God, Frank, is kind to his people,
that they may not have over much sorrow! | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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